Thursday, March 28, 2013

Panhandling: Umstead for Crohn's Disease

It's that time again. Spring is in the air, and a zeal for life has been resurrected. I've been training for the Umstead 100, and it's been a rough patch in my running career. Motivation is lacking, my health has been less than stellar, and missing my mountain playground has stifled my desire to wander aimlessly around and upward. I've had great friends who have helped immensely to get me out the door and shuffling along, and I don't think they fully realized how much they've made a difference.

Next week, I'll be heading down to North Carolina to enjoy a new landscape and a much needed escape from the quiet desparation of eeking through repetitive weeks. Some real time with my girlfriend will be nice, since we rarely see each other for more than the occassional meal.

Why? Why do we do this to ourselves? Selfishness? Narcissism? Masochism? I'm confident that anyone, as long as they made the time and forfeited their other obligations, could finish a 100 mile event on foot. I've proven that I can, and I'm no exemplorary specimen.

If I had a solid answer, I'd probably stop. I can't help but feel that doing things that are difficult can have an effect on the world. We live in a time where we could literally sit around until we died. Nobody is making us learn skills to stay alive. We don't have to gather our own food. We don't have to build our own shelters. We've grown complacent with sitting in the dark. Running is the modality I've chosen to light up that darkness. It's shown me that the world owes us nothing, and no external force is going to save us from ourselves. In fact, most of our world would rather we sit around complacently and stay the hell out of the way. Running 100 miles is a small part of something much bigger. It's important to me that I do it, and I'm not sure why.

At the end of the day, I don't care why. I just want to do it. Forrest Gump had no reasons, and I don't either! It's just cool. The people in the running community are cool. Roads, trails, stairs, mountains, track, whatever. It's a good vibe, and I'll go with it.

Anyway, I made you read all that bullshit because I'm looking to make some money for Crohn's research. Money is tight for us all right now, so I understand that fundraising efforts may be especially annoying for some. That being said, what'll it take?

I'm not looking to strut up to the CCFA(Crohn's and Colitis Foundation of America) headquarters with a giant check and all that(reminds me of Happy Gilmore), but let's throw some money their way. I've set up a page on FirstGiving, a cool site that organizes these types of efforts.

I'll open it up to discussion, and see if we can set some goals. I think it would be cool to set up a goal overall time, or a final mile time to hit, or both, that will up the ante. We all know that I'm a prostitute for free shoes, so this is even more important.

Check out the CCFA page here and learn a little about the disease. It affects people of all ages, and it is assuredly no fun. Research ain't cheap! Come on, I know all of you can't be poor ultrarunner "dirtbags" who act impoverished and sip expensive beer!

The days leading up to the race, I'll set a goal for myself if anyone steps up to post a challenge time(overall or final mile).
For you consideration:
Current 100mile PR: 28:35(ouch, I'm no mountain runner) Tahoe Rim
12hr PR: 78ish miles
50 mile PR: 7:03
5k: mid 17's
800m time at the end of Mind the Ducks 12hr 2010: 2:48(I think)

(okay, I'll admit, it's all just an elaborate ploy to rub my PR's in slower peoples' faces. you caught me.)

3 comments:

what's this bet, then? i'm not sure i follow, mostly because i'm drunk, but lookit: I'll wire this foundation $20 USD if you run the last mile of this race in 6:00 minutes or less. haha, that's so little! i'm sorry man. i don't have much more money this month to put up than that. give'em hell, regardless this weekend. get after that boss jog strut!

it's cool dude. I dropped out! Lucky you! I'll post a write-up asap so people can get off their computers, go to work, and stop wearing out their refresh buttons waiting for an update. Thanks for playing, dude. I'll be putting some money in the foundations giving page, but I'll put this experiment in the "maybe don't do that again" pile. Peace.